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UPDATED: It’s no cheap exercise to implement a surveillance system to record what goes on at home or at one’s place of business. And as for the hardware, it can still be a pricey endeavor. As with most anything else, much depends on engineering and utility. But there’s a name that seeks to extend such artificial eyes into what it calls Web 2.0 video storage, and do so very inexpensively. GoToMyCamera, based in Palo Alto, Calif., operates with the aid of Amazon’s S3 cloudware and enables remote access to video (”surveillance-as-a-service”) at a rate that many will financially regard to be very manageable.

Let’s get right into the numbers. According to GoToMyCamera, part of Eptascape Inc (no affiliation to Citrix, the maker of GoToMyPC), there exist three plans operating on a month-to-month contract. While sign-up costs $5 across the board, a Solo account, allowing for 1 camera, 1 user, and 100 MB of included storage space ($0.25 for extra 100 allotments), will cost just $5. Basic will run you $10 per month, enabling 4 cameras, 1 user, and 200 MB included. And despite what the website may describe, it is $0.50 for each additional 200MB of space.

Higher still is GoToMyCamera’s Business plan, costing $30/month for service with a 10-camera allowance, 10 users, 500 MB included cloud storage. For each additional 500MB, it is $1.50.

There’s a bit of a disparity in the extra storage allotments offered among the Solo, Basic, and Business plans. If storage should be proportional, 500MB would be $1.25 rather than the published $1.50. We’ve contacted the folks behind GoToMyCamera about this. We’ll let you know of their response.

Yet, even with these adjustments, the cost/service ratio is intriguing. Once you have one, two, four, ten network cameras (only Axis Network cameras supported at present), and connect them as required, material pushed to the Web is easily accessed. Vacation on the mind? Perhaps you’re just across town and want to maintain a connection. This is one way to do that - and keep lots of dollars in your pocket.

Update: Marco Graziano of GoToMyCamera wrote back to us about the matter over storage pricing. Here is his reply in full:

I have tried intentionally to keep only storage for additional fees over the monthly fee. It is true that there is an (intentional) small discrepancy between the $0.25/100MB for Solo subscribers and the $1.50/500MB for the Business subscribers. On the other hand, Business subscribers have up to 10 times the cameras of the Solo subscribers with increased bandwidth costs that is not a factor in the pricing. It is not easy to map what Amazon S3 charges us into a simple schema for end-users and this is an initial attempt. I would like to refrain from using number of “HTTP PUTS” and bandwidth in the pricing schema for our subscribers. Somehow they need to be factored in. We will be able to refine the pricing once we have a better understanding of the common usage patterns in real situations.

A Colorado law professor argues that ISP surveillance, powered by deep packet inspection gear, represents an "unprecedented and invasive" danger. But laws to curtail may already be on the books.

Read More...

An interesting statement emerged on NewTeeVee today. Post author Chris Albrecht quotes Roku VP of consumer products “It’s unfortunate that the limitless possibilities are being capped by an ISP [Comcast], but it has no direct business impact on us.” Roku, for those unaware, is in a partnership with Netflix to deliver streaming movies on a $99 buy-in deal fully subsidized through one’s monthly rental subscription cost. Comcast, meanwhile, will be initiating a bandwidth limit of 250GB for residential broadband users per month starting in October.

Let me say that 1) the limits to be enact could have a direct business impact on Roku, and 2) of course the company will say otherwise. The reason being that it is in Roku’s interest to disregard changes at Comcast. If it were to complain in ways that prospective users would notice, it might risk cutting into sales by dissuading shoppers concerned about hitting the data limit. And at this point in time, Roku likely doesn’t need such disruptions to its output.

VP Tim Twerdhal says that consumers’ choice of downstream video bitrates allows Roku to safely stay within the bounds set by Comcast. A valid point. Equally valid is his explanation that visual quality will be sustained while bitrates drop as the technologies involved improve and advance. But such progress is a relative unknown to Comcast’s very real “cut-off.”

Furthermore, it only takes knowledge of existence a limit - not too big or too small - to influence consumer decisions. Give a user warning of what might be if he/she were to seek the full potential (or close to it) of modern conveniences like high-quality media downloads, and that tricky thing known as deliberation creeps into the picture. A user might begin to weight the pros and cons of his/her situation. And that eventually eats into interconnected economies. With the movie/TV download sector being one of the hungriest around today.

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Related Articles at Mashable! - The Social Networking Blog:

YouTube Insights: Now With Demographic Stats
MySpace Data Availability Goes Live
Google Voluntarily Taking Your Analytics Data
TiVo to Release User Profile Data
Viacom Backs Down - Our Privacy is Preserved
GeoCommons - Google Maps Meet Heat Maps
Facebook Beacon Collects Data on Non-Users Too

Learn in the information linked here about new technology applications that are being moved into place to mitigate human crises. Mobile local information gathering and digital mapping are collaborating. A post at iRevolution titled Flood Warning, Mobile Phones and Dynamic Mapping of India describes the goals and methods being tried in the Monsoon Project:

In Mumbai and Ahmedabad, we will see what kind of qualitative data people have reported. The next step is to to expand the data collection exercise to discreet objective data points that may expedite rescue and response in real-time. Can farmers sitting atop roofs in the flooded villages of Orissa use their cell phones to transmit simple, discreet, data points that would help plot a real-time map of events as they unfold? Can such a platform be created? How far are we in terms of technology and collaboration? At HHI, the Crisis Mapping Project is well underway, with small projects at multiple locations in different stages of development. . . .

The Conflict Early Warning and Crisis Mapping projects at the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative is supporting these smart mob era endeavors that are essentially brand new opportunities of the 21st century:

HHI is currently engaged in a multi-disciplinary research project sponsored by Humanity United that seeks to advance crisis mapping and early warning efforts worldwide by:

- Identifying lessons learned and best practices in the field of crisis mapping and early warning;
- Assessing viable community-based conflict early warning and response strategies;
- Analyzing innovations in and increasing uses of information communication technology (ICT);
- Outlining future trends, gaps, and opportunities for collaboration among organizations.

Photo prise le 6 sept, 2008, coin Savoie et De Maisonneuve.

L’Allée des bouquinistes: Plusieurs vendeurs de livres d’occasion et d’illustrations s’installent toutes les fin de semaines, du 9 août au 12 octobre, dans les petites cabines en arrière de la Grande Bibliothèque (entre Saint-Denis et Berri).

J’ai ramassé une copie de Bonheur d’occasion (Gabrielle Roy) pour $3 hier. Mon but sera de lire, éventuellement, tout les romans qui se déroulent à Montréal.